Sheriff Hennessey plans to have a (wrecking) ball in final days on the job

San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessey came into office 32 years ago vowing to do something about the deplorable conditions at the city’s Depression-era jail located in San Bruno. It was finally shut down five years ago when a new jail next door was opened.

Hennessey stands in old cell at shuttered jail.

And now, just days before his administration comes to a close Sunday and Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi takes over, a wrecking ball will start to knock down the old lockup — a fitting cap to Hennessey’s long tenure.

“I ran for sheriff of San Francisco because I believed it was wrong to have prisoners living in and deputies working in such dangerous conditions,” Hennessey said in his push to get to get the jail shuttered.

“Never did I realize that getting it done would take years of bureaucratic wrangling, a federal class-action lawsuit, two failed bond measures and a U.S. District Court judge declaring the conditions so bad that they violated the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment,” Hennessey said today.

The first destructive whack at the decommissioned jail is scheduled for Wednesday morning, with Hennessey presiding over the festivities. He plans to christen the wrecking ball with a bottle of sparking cider — not the traditional bottle of champagne, his office noted, because alcoholic beverages are prohibited on jail grounds.